Just 36 Hours
by The Evina
Summary: The toon council is hiding dark secrets. This is what is discovered in the time of just thirty-six hours.


Evina walked into Donald's Dreamland and bought some gags at the gag shop.

"It's been a while since I've seen you." One of the clerks remarked.

"Yeah, I haven't been that active. Things have been really slow lately. I've been wondering what the toon council has been up to these last months."

"Yeah, it has been unusually quiet, but I'm sure some new event will come soon. I don't think Flippy is sitting in his office, watching TV and doing nothing all day."

"There are not many people who have seen Flippy in his office." Evina replied. "For all we know, he might be a cog or an alien."

The clerk laughed. Several other toons looked toward them. "Well, that will be 25 jellybeans. See you later!"

Evina paid and left with a smile. It felt good back to be in Toontown once more. He walked down the steps and sat down on the bed. The building that he just defeated had been exhausting. Glancing at his watch he noticed it was 10:00 at night. The rest of Toontown probably looked as dark as Donald's Dreamland.

"I should get back home." He muttered.

"You can say that again!" another toon said.

Evina quickly looked up and he saw one of his best friends, Princesspinkcat.

"Hi."

"I haven't seen you here for a while. How are you doing?" Princesspinkcat asked.

"I'm doing just fine."

"You look tired. Why don't you go get some rest?"

"I want to take a look around and see if anything has changed since I was last here. So far the only thing I've noticed is that you've gained 10 laff points."

"Yeah, I've been working on it. I really interested in racing and golfing lately."

"Well that's great. I should probably get home. See you later!"

Princesspinkcat waved to him as he walked away. The playground was almost completely empty and he felt more tired than he had felt in months. The music was making him feel extremely drowsy. He sat down next to the library door and fell asleep.

He woke up a few hours later. According to his watch, it was now 2:00 in the morning. He stood up and stretched. He was all alone in the playground. Even Donald had gone home. Evina felt a very strange and lonely feeling.

He reached in his pocket and pulled out his teleportation hole. He was just about to teleport home when he noticed something.

There was something engraved on the wall where he had slept. He had never seen it before. It was a fancy letter "C" with a "T" in the middle. It took Evina a few minutes to remember what it was.

"That's the toon council seal." He said to himself. He was surprised to hear his voice in all the silence.

The engraving seemed to be a button that was protruding from the wall. He was hesitant, but curious to see if it really was a button. He pushed it and sure enough, it went it.

There was a deep hollow thud from within the walls. It made the ground vibrate a little and Evina was frightened. The button did not pop back out. It was still pressed in the wall.

"That was really weird..." He remarked.

Suddenly there was a loud scraping noise. The duck gasped as the wall slip open in front of him. There was a circular, narrow tunnel ahead. It was completely dark and Evina could hear the whistling of wind inside.

"This is something I've never seen before." He chuckled. His laugh echoed into the tunnel. It was emitting strange noises.

Part of him was desperate to go inside and explore; the other part told him to go home and avoid any danger. The adventurous part of him won and he decided to go inside. He climbed into the tunnel and crawled forward on his hands and knees. No sooner had he gone a few feet when the tunnel closed behind him. Everything was dark.

He was panicking. He knew there was no way to go back outside. The wall was made of granite, a foot thick. He knew that the only way to get out was to go forward.

Despite his situation, he tried to not worry. "Everything's okay. This is just a little adventure." His voice was echoing in the distance. He could tell the tunnel was long.

He started to crawl forward again. The tunnel was cold and metallic. There were little puddles of water along the way. "Nobody's been in here for years." He muttered.

After about fifteen minutes of crawling, he hit rocks. He put his hands above him and tried to stand up. He felt some sharp rocks above him. He was out of the tunnel and in some kind of cave.

"I wonder where this is!" Evina said even though he knew that nobody could be listening. He started to walk on his feet now. Now he could see that there were tons of stalagmites and stalactites in the cave. Water was dripping slowly. Evina wondered how he could see things without any light. Looking around he searched for the answer. He discovered the dim light coming from thousands of little purple crystals on the walls. They varied in size and sparkled.

Evina went to the wall and pulled a tiny one off of it. He was fascinated by how it glowed and sparkled so mysteriously. He put it in his pocket and continued. The end of the cave was ahead.

"So what do I do now that I hit a dead end?" Evina wondered.

The floor suddenly opened and he yelled. He fell down a long chute. It went up and down in spirals and loops. Then he flew out of the chute and landed on a hard ground.

There was no light at all. Evina remembered the crystal in his pocket and promptly removed it. In the dim light, he saw that he was in a small room. The chute that he had come out of was too slippery and steep to go back up. There was a door in front of him. He decided not to leave until the morning. So leaning up against a wall he fell asleep again.

When he woke up, he used the crystal to read his watch. It was almost 6:00 in the morning. He reached for the doorknob and opened it a crack. It was a long hallway. A security guard was sleeping in his chair. Evina opened the door and tiptoed past the guard. The hallway split into other smaller hallways. He turned to the left. The first door he saw was labeled "Laboratory 13A". Evina opened this door a little bit.

It was a large, white room. A green cat wearing a lab coat was bent over a long table of glowing test tubes. He was muttering nervously under his breath. Evina sneaked inside and hid behind a large pile of crates.

Suddenly a door opened on the other side of the room. A blue horse walked inside and shut the door with an echoing bang. "How is it going, George?" he asked the cat.

The cat named George rose slowly from the table. "I need more lithium." He said sternly.

"We don't have any more." The horse said. "Can't you use some sodium or potassium instead?"

"No! It won't work!" George yelled furiously. "I can't do it!"

"So... you're not even close to finishing it. Master Flippy is not going to be happy about this."

"I don't care! You can tell Mr. Flippy that if he wants his little potion, then he can do it himself!"

"You know what will happen. He'll have to fire you and erase your memory." The horse smiled. "The master is not very forgiving."

"Well I did the very best I could! It can't be done without the proper materials! I've been working in here for days!"

The horse laughed. "I still can't understand why you're complaining. At least you're not breaking your back trying to mine those stupid crystals."

The cat paused. "I still don't know why he cares about those worthless things..."

"If you have a problem, then take it to the master. Let's go." The horse grabbed the cat and dragged him out the door. Evina tried to follow them as silently as possible. The two toons went through a heavily guarded area at the end of the hall with a sign that had the words "Top Secret".

Evina was wondering why the toons were calling Flippy their _master_. He continued silently walking down another hallway, but then he saw some guards rounding the corner from the other end. Evina ran inside the nearest room to hide.

A huge tub of the glowing purple crystals was being crushed into fine powder. The powder was put in huge sacs that were carried by a conveyor belt to a room marked "Refining".

Evina went into that room and saw a mixture of chemicals poured over the sacs. A purple liquid drained from the sacs and then the sacs were dried and emptied. The refined crystal powder was glowing white. This powder was poured into buckets that moved to the next room marked "Mixing".

He went into the room and gasped at what he saw. There was a downsizer cog that was measuring and mixing the powder into large containers of different liquids. Whenever the crystal powder was poured into a liquid, the liquid would start to glow.

Within seconds the cog saw Evina. "Hey! Who are you?" It shouted.

Evina acted quickly. He seized a large, metal object and crushed the downsizer. He pulled the downsizer's clothes off and put them on as a disguise. The downsizer had been wearing an ID tag on its shirt that said:

_John Neon (Downsizer, Bossbot level 9 v2.0.)_  
_Refined Crystal Mixer_  
_Toon Council HQ_

Evina was horrified to see a cog working for the Toon Council. Every moment he spent here was becoming more and more frightening. He wondered what the terrible consequence might be if he was caught. He never would have imagined that the toon council had kept so many secrets from the toons. There was a feeling that these crystals were not meant to be used for something good.

Evina walked out of the mixing room disguised as the cog.

There was a Name Dropper that saw him. "Hello, John." she said. Evina was pleased to see that his disguise was working. He turned into another hall, hoping to find out some more clues. There was a door that was slightly ajar at the end. He walked to it and listened to what was happening inside.

There was a toon muttering something. "No, no that's not right. We need something new, something exciting!"

"How about a huge cog invasion?" another toon suggested.

"Great idea! What kind of invasion?"

"How about a Mr. Hollywood invasion? There hasn't been one for a while now."

"Good idea! I'll be finished with this in a moment. Are you already done?"

"Yeah, I'll just go take this to the master." the toon walked right out of the door and froze when he saw Evina.

They just stared at each other for a moment. Evina saw that the other toon was a brown rabbit working for the news department.

"Who are you?" The rabbit asked.

Evina paused. "I'm... John."

"Can you take this to the master, John?" the rabbit asked, walking back inside.

"Uh yeah, sure." Evina answered. He was curious to see what this was all about, but he was also a little nervous. The consequences of being caught would be dire.

He turned into the main hallway and made his way to the top secret chamber that the scientists had gone to. He began reading the papers that the rabbit had given him.

_The toon council believes that a Mr. Hollywood invasion will be started soon. The cogs are up to no good as usual. Be sure to have a lot of good gags and a lot of laff because these cogs may be a doozy!_

Evina wondered why the toons were just making this story up. He approached one of the security guards, a purple pig. The pig glanced briefly at Evina's ID and let him through without hesitation. A door opened up and Evina walked into a much darker hallway.

This hall was filled with strange noises. There were barrels filled with cog attacks, sitting along the walls of the hallway. At the end of the hall, there was a door with a light on inside. It was labeled with the words "President's Office."

Evina nervously walked up to the door and knocked.

"Come in." Mickey's voice answered. Evina walked inside and saw Mickey in a dark gray suit. He was sitting at a table with Flippy and two other council members. There was a large pile of jellybeans in the center of the table. They were gambling. Evina carefully walked forward and handed the papers to Mickey.

Mickey examined it carefully. "Yes, these would make nice headlines for tomorrow." He said. "It should keep those toons busy for the moment while we work on more important things."

Flippy was also wearing a dark gray suit. He looked like he was about to fall asleep. He was slouching over the table awkwardly.

"Thank you for bringing this to me, John." Mickey said.

"Oh yeah, no problem." Evina said. He exited the room but left the door open a bit so he could see and hear more of what was going on.

"I really think you need a recharge." One of the toon council members whispered to Flippy.

"I think you're right." Flippy said slowly. He reached behind his back and pulled a long cord from the wall and plugged it into the back of his head.

"I really need some help."

A secret door opened up and a micromanager walked out of a small chamber. "You need help master?"

"Yeah, my eyes hurt!" Flippy complained.

"Ok, I"ll just pull them out and replace them with cog parts." The micromanager said.

"No thank you." Flippy smiled. "As you can see, I am already mostly a cog."

"What's wrong with being a cog?" the micromanager asked looking confused.

Flippy looked furious. "I have to look like a toon if I'm going to rule Toontown! If I walk out there as a cog then all our plans will be ruined!"

The Micromanager looked stunned. It stood there for a moment before taking a small potion out of its pocket and handing it to Flippy. Flippy took it and drank it quickly.

"Do we have anymore potion?" Flippy asked.

"No sir."

"Is that scientist who made it going to make some more""

"No, he says he can't do it without the chemicals he needs so we kept him in the prison like you asked."

"Good... well actually, it's not good. I'm going to need that potion to get stronger. I can't continue to live like this.

"I am sorry, master."

"It's not your fault. We're going to need a lot more crystals to make those version 3.0 cogs too. I just don't understand why toons have become so lazy these last few years. You would think that with all the cogs we're giving them that they would learn to do something."

"I believe it is because we are two weak, master." the Micromanager said.

"I know, and that's why we must not fail. Toontown is in for a lot of hurt." Flippy said.

The micromanager was going to walk back to its chamber, but it paused first. "Master, that scientist and several other workers have heard strange noises like footsteps when there is nobody there."

"Do you doubt our security?" Flippy questioned. "Do you think there is any danger of anyone finding us here?"

"No master."

"Then forget about it." Flippy spat.

The micromanager sighed and rolled back into its chamber. The hidden door closed.

The council members were silent for a few minutes. Mickey was the first one to speak next. "I am a little worried about these new plans. They are a little brutal."

"Nonsense." Flippy said. "I'm ruling Toontown quite well."

"But, don't you ever regret lying to everyone about what's really happening, and who you really are?"

"I am your master! Be careful of what you say!"

"But I am Mickey Mouse!"

"Does it look like I care? We know that this is the only way to get Toontown to listen to me, to convert to a cog nation. I am never wrong. This is Toontown's only future! This is the only way! And nobody can stop us from doing it."

Jellybeans and cards were launched into the air as Mickey jumped up. "What do you mean by 'us'?" He gasped, looking angry. "You can do this alone, Flippy! I refuse to take part in these terrible crimes! This is just evil!"

"GUARDS, TAKE HIM AWAY!" Flippy screamed. Several red lights began flashing through the hallways and sirens sounded. Evina heard loud footsteps coming from behind him.

Dozens of guards, both toons and cogs, rushed into the president's room and seized Mickey. None of them seemed to notice that Evina was there.

"For years, I've been suffering from your silly ideas!" Flippy shouted at Mickey. "But now I've had enough of you! You're not worth much to me anymore!"

"No!" Mickey screamed as the guards dragged him into the hallway.

Now everybody finally noticed Evina standing there and they paused.

"Who are you?" Flippy asked.

"I... I'm John."

Flippy quickly looked at Evina's ID card. "John is supposed to be a cog! YOU'RE AN INTRUDER!"

Evina ran as fast as he could as some of the guards chased behind him. The flashing red lights were disorienting and Evina had trouble locating an escape. Finally, he found a heavy metal door and opened it up.

He ran into a gargantuan silo filled with rockets and missiles hundreds of feet tall. The air was filled with green gases.

"COME BACK HERE, YOU SON OF A NOOB!" Flippy shouted as he and the guards rushed into the silo.

Evina ran up the spiral staircase leading to the top of the silo. The guards pursued him, shooting their weapons at him.

"DON'T LET HIM ESCAPE, AND DON"T DETONATE THE BOMBS!" Flippy bellowed.

Some of the shots came dangerously close to hitting Evina and the missiles. And Evina wasn't sure how long he would be able to keep this up before he was caught.

Just then, one of the guard's shots hit one of the supports holding a missile. It began to lean, and with a terrible creaking noise it fell towards the ground.

Trying to think fast, Evina remembered how his safes were supposed to be indestructible. He pressed a button and a safe fell from the air. He climbed inside and shut the lid, seeing Flippy scream as the bomb fell down towards him.

There was a huge explosion and the safe was thrown into the air. Evina accidentally hit his head and went unconscious.

Evina woke up in the safe, feeling cold. He felt around for the wheel to unlock the safe. Then with a suction noise it opened up. Evina stepped out onto a grassy field. He was at the bottom of the mountain in Acorn Acres. Half of the mountainside was blown away, leaving a gaping hole with smoke rising out of it.

Without any more hesitation, the duck ran towards Toontown Central as fast as he could. Toons stared at him; he looking dirty and crazy. Within a few minutes, he located Princesspinkcat. She was reading a newspaper.

"It says 'Have you seen explosions over Acorn Acres last night? Maybe the Toon Council is testing fireworks for New Years! Only time will tell!' Oh, hi Evina! I've been looking for you for a day and a half. Has anything new happened to you?"

Evina sat down on a bench and sighed, feeling overwhelmed with everything he had just learned. "Please sit down; you would be surprised to know what can happen in just thirty-six hours."


End file.
